Showing posts with label easy printmaking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label easy printmaking. Show all posts

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Field Trip! Sawtooth Print Shop

I'm excited to share with my students and y'all another installment in that series of videos that I'm calling Field Trip!  I got the idea to visit contemporary artists and film them in action to share with my students. The goal is for them to see living artists creating and know that creating art takes many forms from mural painting to folk art to...printmaking. Which brings me to these two good lookin' folks, Chris Cheney and Nieves Uhl of Sawtooth Print Shop.
They are seriously so much fun!
I met Chris and Nieves at a workshop hosted by The Frist Center for Visual Arts. We had so much fun that when I was dreaming up artists to visit, their studio immediately came to mind. Not surprisingly, they were totally open to the idea and were gracious enough to carve time (see what I did there? "Carve"...get it?!) out of their busy schedule to show me just how they create their prints. They were so thorough in their explanations that I believe kids will understand their process. 
Personally, I just loved exploring their space and snapping photos for their vintage typeface. I was told most are purchased from former printmakers who no longer have a means to print or a desire to do so. 

 I loved how clearly they explained the reasoning behind carving backwards. I know I would mess that up ALL.THE.TIME. I don't know how they do it.
Both artists did their internship at Hatch Show Print which must-see if you are ever visiting beautiful downtown Nashville. 
I felt like I learned so much from this field trip as well! Seeing the process of how their posters are creating was like taking a step back in time. I think that showing this Field Trip! video will be a great introduction to any printmaking unit. 
Since we're talking about printmaking, I thought I'd add some of my favorite printmaking projects and videos to this post. 
You don't need fancy printmaking supplies to create great prints with your students. In a pinch, you can use styrofoam sheets, markers, paper and a damp sponge. If you've never tried marker prints, they are a game changer! First grade created these lovely prints with that method. More details here

Last year, third grade tried their hand at printmaking with these beautiful cityscape prints

For that, we did use ink but markers could have been used as well. 
Gelli Plates make a great printmaking surface as well, which is what we used for this Andy Warhol-inspired lesson. I've created my own gelatin plates and had the kids use those as well. 
Earlier this year, my third graders created these marker prints and used them in a fall collage
Fourth grade created these radial prints for Dot Day and had a ton of fun. 
Seriously, y'all. This poster created by Sawtooth is a kid-fave in my room.  

Special thanks to Chris and Nieves for the fun visit. Y'all are the best! 
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Tuesday, September 9, 2014

DIY: A Warhol's Flowers Printed Dress

You know, being the uber professional and not-at-all shallow person that I am, when I was initially asked to teach a workshop at a local -n- lovely botanical gardens my first thought was, "OMGah! WHAT AM I GONNA WEAR?!" 

Not the lessons I was gonna teach or the examples I was gonna share. Nah. Because, you see, I'm about at deep as a nearly-drained kiddie pool. I ain't braggin, y'all. Just statin' facts, ma'am. And that one lone sir who accidentally found himself on this blog and is wondering, "how in the world do I get outta here?!".  Oh, hubs, if I've told you once, I've told ya a million times, hit the back button and return to the land of the non-crazy. Sigh.
In all (non)seriousness, when I was approached by Karen Kwarciak, Manager of School and Outreach Progams at Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art (holy cow, that was a mouthful), she mentioned that the workshop was on the very last day of the Andy Warhol's Flowers exhibit. Being that the exhibit was super fabulous, Karen and I thought it would be fun to base the workshop around Warhol's Flowers.
I mean, riiiiiight?! Super fabulous. Unfortunately, this piece is no longer available as it's hanging above my couch. Thanks for the discount, Cheekwood! Wait...what do you mean you want it back?! And, really, was it necessary to call the cops? I mean, suriously.
Since museums tend to get all huffy about folks "borrowing" their masterpieces, I thought we'd create our own Warhol-inspired pieces at the workshop! AND, being that I needed something to wear, I decided to print mine on fabric and use 'em to embellish a dress. I was super stoked with how these turned out so I thought I'd share the super simple process with you!
For this, you'll need the following supplies:

* A Gelli-Plate. If you don't have these as they do cost a small fortune, no worries! You can make your own version of a Gelli-Plate outta gelatin found at the grocery. I wrote a blog post about it a while back...go here for directions and it will yield the same results (I just wanted to say "yield the same results" because I thought I might fool you into thinking me intelligent. Did it work?)

* Fabric Paint. Only necessary if you plan to wash the fabric. Otherwise, acrylic would probably work.

* Brayer.

* Thin Cotton Fabric. I noticed that the thinner the fabric, the better. Or paper.

* Flowers. I used these daisies (that's what those are, right? I have two black thumbs so I've no clue).

For the first print, which will be the negative image, ink up your printing surface and lay a flower down face down. Place your fabric (or paper!) and massage the surface. Lift off your paper/fabric and VIOLA!
Groovy, right? But wait, there's more!

Now, remove the flower, apply a fresh sheet of fabric/paper, massage and BOOM!
Can I get an applause? Thank you, thank you vury much.
After pulling over a dozen of these prints, I decided I was ready to add it to a dress. So I skipped down to the local clothing-resale shop and found this super short-shorty for a mere $6. I thought the colors were perfectly suited for me prints.
I was so excited to begin, I only snapped a coupla photos. I did appliqué stitch the flowers to the neckline...
As well as quilt and attach these prints to the hemline.


For a quickie DIY, I thought the results were pretty fun. AND NOW I had something to wear for the workshop. Otherwise, I woulda just had to call in sick. 
So just what was the workshop all about, you ask? Okay, so you didn't ask but whateves, Ima bout to tell you. We began with a fantastic guided tour through the Warhol exhibit. Once finished, I introduced that aforementioned gelatin printing. If you've not tried this yet, it's one of those everyone's-successful/inspired/challenged type projects that we all love. This got a lotta oooohs and ahhhhhs. The process works exactly the same as that I showed ya on the Gelli Plate: negative print first...


Remove the leaves, print again and positive prints second. Not only did the participants play around with the gelatin plates but they also tried their hand at printing on the Gelli-Plates. They created prints both on paper and on fabric. I loved their results.
And, being the awesome art teachers that they are, they totally came up with their own ideas! For example, several experimented with using the flowers as a stamp.

For the image on the left, the artist stamped onto their negative print paper with a flower. It turned out the flowers held the paint for a pinch thus making this possible. I do believe that same idea was used on the right.
I thought the flowers looked pretty amazing after this process! So Warhol-esque!
These images were created on fabric. The one on the left was created with that stamping technique. I also had puffy paint available for those that wanted to play around with outline or design ideas.
That morning, I also introduced a leaf relief project that is another one of my faves. If you follow this link, you can read all about this simple yet super-amazing looking process.
After a super delish lunch and some down time, we jumped right back in for more crafting. This time, I introduced a stenciled embroidery project that I can't wait to try out with my students. I also showed 'em my fave craft in the whole wide world -- needle felting!
I tried to keep the afternoon projects super open-ended. I thought this would be better for the teachers to visualize what might work best in their art room with their resources and curriculum. I loved the variety of felted fun they had! I think felting was their fave.
Here's an example of an artist using her stenciled piece with needle felting. The fabric paint dries quickly so no one had to wait before attacking with the felting tool.
Y'all know I loved this piece!
And so, there you go! A Warhol-inspired dress for a workshop full of artsy mess! Special thanks to Cheekwood and Karen for hosting the fun. Chat soon, y'all!
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